The trusted worker forced a family firm into closure when she plundered cash to bankroll IVF treatment.

But now Court of Appeal judges have cut her jail term to nine months.

Her lawyer claimed the 37-year-old’s family – six children aged from a few months to 19, and a husband in ill health – are struggling to cope without her.

Bell’s former boss, Neil Shield, said: “I think it is disgusting. We’ve had to go through so much because of what she did – it feels like she’s had a slap on the wrist and it’s us who have had the kick up the backside.

“The effect on my family and my former colleagues of her stealing has been huge. The real costs were much higher than just the money she took.

“I am really, really disappointed in the system that has allowed this to happen.”

Bell, of Prince Consort Road, Gateshead, was a trusted accounts manageress at Neil’s firm, T Shield Ltd, when she helped herself to more than £20,000 by forging Neil’s signature on company cheques.

She used the money to have fertility treatment and conceive her sixth baby.

But the cash she stole, and the knock-on effect of having to hire an accountant to straighten out the finances, forced the 30-year-old family firm into liquidation. Half the staff lost their jobs.

Bell, who is now pregnant with her seventh child, was jailed for 16 months for three counts of fraud at Newcastle Crown Court last month.

Judge Roger Thorn QC said: “You forged the cheques of one of your employers, which went undetected for two years because you were such a trusted employee. The consequence of your forgery was that the company ended up in liquidation.”

But three senior judges at London’s court of Appeal ruled that the sentence was “manifestly excessive”. Bell’s barrister, Roger Moore, said the appeal had not been brought for her benefit, but for her family.

“This is a dangerous position for the family,” he said. “There is a bigger picture than this defendant.”

Mr Justice Wilkie, sitting with Lord Justice Pitchford and Judge Nicholas Cooke QC, said the offending and its dire consequences for her now out-of-work colleagues meant prison was inevitable.

But the stresses placed on the family, and on Bell herself in enduring a difficult pregnancy behind bars, were considerable mitigation.

“In our judgment, the public has an interest in keeping such a large and cohesive family together,” he continued.

“This combination of considerations... led to a sentence which was manifestly excessive.”

Bell will serve half of her nine-month term in prison before she is eligible for release on licence, meaning she is likely to be behind bars when she gives birth to her seventh child in June.